Case Study: How to Run a 7-Day Challenge

Amelia attended the ProBlogger Evolve and Mastermind events in 2017, and adapted speaker Jadah Sellner’s 7-Day Challenge model to boost her own lead generation and course enrollments.

Here’s how she did it.

When I attended ProBlogger Evolve in 2017, I was specifically looking for guidance on how to market and run a new online program I’d been piloting. The format of “How to Get it Right” was a six-week program on a launch model, with six weeks’ membership to a Facebook group and weekly live Q&A sessions.

I already had an evergreen premium coaching program where I supported and guided homeowners through their projects over a 12-month period. This six-week program would be a standalone offering that would also give members a taste of the premium program and let them upgrade if they so chose.

During the Mastermind day on Problogger Evolve, Jadah Sellner (previously of Simple Green Smoothies) did a presentation on her signature “How to Build a Challenge” process. She’d had success using challenges as list builders, as well as great conversion tools for selling products and programs online.

I’d considered using it as a lead generator for “How to Get it Right”. But I wasn’t sure whether I’d be giving too much of the course away, or whether I’d need to come up with new content.

During one of the breaks, I spoke with Jadah about my concerns. She asked about the format of my course content (number of steps, breakdown of modules, etc). She suggested sharing the six steps in the first of my four modules. She also suggested I run a live webinar (or something similar) on the last day, and pitch it as a seven-day challenge. I could tell attendees they’d just had a taste of the full program, which they could now join and use that momentum to keep taking action on their projects.

I’d seen people using a Facebook group or page to keep generating leads during their challenges. So I wanted to incorporate that as well.

This is how we built the Undercover Architect Free 7-Day Challenge.

We hosted the challenge itself inside our online course platformWe already had a WordPress site with the Access Ally plugin to run our online “Your Reno Roadmap” program. We built the 7-Day Challenge as a course inside there to make it easy to:

create a great user experience

drip-feed content

provide extra resources.

Members also received a personal login to the 7-Day Challenge site, which gave them a taste of the technology the actual course would run on.

The first six steps of my “How to Get it Right in Your Reno or New Home” content became the six days of the free challenge

These six steps are the first steps anyone needs to do if planning a reno or new home. But they’re often missed by homeowners. Instead of sharing all the content inside the course, I used storytelling and examples to teach the steps. I created a short video for each day of the challenge to present this information. I used my iPad Pro to shoot them in my office (with our rooster crowing in the background), and edited them in iMovie.

We provide extra resources for each day inside the online course

We included links to blogs or podcasts on Undercover Architect’s website, and other online resources. We also created an interactive PDF worksheet to help homeowners relate the learnings to their own projects. (These were created in Canva, and then made interactive in Adobe Acrobat.)

We ran ads on Facebook and Instagram to launch the challenge

We advertised a start date for seven-day challenge It was part of the lead up to launching the program, with day seven of the challenge being the ‘cart open’ day to purchase “How to Get it Right”.It was a great lead generator.I’ve run the challenge twice now, and it’s added more than 1,500 people to my email list, with low conversion costs on Facebook.

During the actual challenge, we uploaded each day’s challenge video to the Undercover Architect Facebook page, with a CTA to join if they wanted to access the free resources inside the course website.

We used ActiveCampaign, and set up an automation that allowed people to opt in before the challenge. They could also opt in after the challenge had started. If they opted in on Day 3, they would get immediate access to Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3, and then be drip-fed the remainder of the challenge.

(We did this with a lot of “If/Then” settings in ActiveCampaign, and “Wait until specific date”. As an aside, if you’re an Access Ally owner, I recommend joining Nathalie Lussier’s Facebook Group for Access Ally. I got an immediate reply in there when asking a question about how to get this to work in Active Campaign).This meant we could run Facebook ads to each day’s video, and collect email addresses while the challenge was live.

And each day we sent a reminder to everyone who opted in to visit the course website, watch the video and grab their free resources.

Day seven of the Challenge was a Facebook Live

I debated whether to do this as a webinar. But in the end I figured there would be less friction if I just offered it as a Free Q&A on the Undercover Architect Facebook page. We uploaded it to the course website for anyone who missed it. During the Facebook live, I wrapped up the 7-Day Challenge, spoke about the launch of “How to Get it Right” (which had been seeded during the challenge) and then answered questions.

We then retargeted the Facebook ads to the video viewers and email list from the challenge. We also ran other campaigns during the ‘cart open’ phase.

We’ve now run this challenge/launch format twice for the “How to Get it Right” program. And each time it’s been great as a conversion tool. In the most recent round, 25% of purchasers had only joined our list during the free 7-Day Challenge we’d just run.

We also found with the most recent launch that a good portion of purchasers had done the free challenge both times.

I found the challenge was a great way to provide high-quality, actionable content to the UA Community, and give them a taste of what the online program is like. I also had people emailing me who weren’t ready to join the course, but still appreciated the experience of learning the best first steps in a reno or new build project.

How has this performed against other launches? Well, the last two launches of “How to Get it Right” have certainly been the biggest revenue launches I’ve done. They’ve also been the most structured, with a lead generation strategy and marketing campaign.

With the most recent launch I used the Content Strategy Pat Flynn shared during his Mastermind session to feed the launch into my podcast content. This worked really well too.

I’m now reviewing how I can set up “How to Get it Right in Your Reno or New Home” as an evergreen offering, and how the free 7-Day Challenge will be involved. The thing about homeowners planning their renovation or new home is that it’s not seasonal, and everyone does it at a different pace. So, while the ‘launch’ strategy builds scarcity, it doesn’t serve my audience in terms of them having access to the information in the way they need.

We’re also reviewing whether the 7-Day Challenge will stay on our online course site, or whether we’ll give it a different home. I’ve noticed Pat Flynn runs his mini-courses on Leadpages, as do many other online businesses that release a video each day in the same way. We had a bit of tech management to do with each challenge as people familiarised themselves with the username/password process of logging into a site, and so Leadpages may alleviate this.

But the 7-Day Challenge is a fantastic information asset for Undercover Architect, and super valuable to those who participate. So it’s definitely something we’ll feature in our business in the not-too-distant future.

We’re currently focusing on building another complimentary online program called “Manage Your Build” that will help homeowners oversee the construction of their new home or renovation with sanity, confidence and ease.

I was incredibly grateful for the opportunity to attend ProBlogger Evolve 2017, and for what I learned there. The calibre of expertise, and the generosity of teaching and sharing, was amazing. And to have the queen of challenges herself, Jadah Sellner, give me personal advice on how to structure mine was invaluable.

So, what challenge will you create for your audience?

BIO

Amelia Lee is the architect behind Undercover Architect.

Undercover Architect is an award-winning online resource that helps homeowners get it right when designing, building or renovating their family homes.

Amelia has more than 20 years industry experience in more than 250 projects (including three renovations of her own). She brings that experience and expertise to Undercover Architect to teach you how to save time, money and stress in your project, and ensure you create a home that suits you now, and always.

With a blog, podcast and online programs to support and guide you, Undercover Architect provides the know-how you need to feel confident and in control.